


Postpartum

by Strigi



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Drug Use, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Postpartum Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2018-10-25 15:24:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10767036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strigi/pseuds/Strigi
Summary: The Prydwen never comes to the Commonwealth. The three remaining survivors of the Cambridge Police Station are forced to relocate and take refuge elsewhere. While Nora, Sole Survivor of Vault 111, poses as a maternal figure to them and every lost soul in the Commonwealth, nothing seems to heal the gaping void in her life that once held her precious family stolen by the Institute.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting a new story to AO3, and it's not finished yet. As such, the warnings/tags may be altered through the course of the story, but I'm hoping that I got them with as much foresight as I can manage. Please bear with me.

Joy was indescribable. At least, hers was. Nothing could compare to the feeling of floating through life painlessly. It moved quickly, seamlessly. Perhaps a shade too quickly. Too fast to feel and relish the experiences, like a blur.

But she remembered enough.

Her highest moment was the birth of her son. Shaun's entrance into the world signaled not only a new page to her life. This _was_ her life, as if it started in that moment. She had no need for an epidural; she felt no pain. For when she heard the cries of her newborn, there was nothing but life, bliss. Love.

The doctor passed the swaddled baby over to her, proclaiming its sex. When she took the baby into her arms, Nora felt a gentle squeeze on her shoulder, a kiss against her head. She looked up to see the smiling, tearing face of her husband.

When their eyes met, it was always a magical moment, like tangible electricity coursing between them. When their eyes met this time, she felt it all over again—life, bliss. Especially love, and it was crushing. A wave of it pressing against her chest, suffocating. They were fortunate enough that he had been honorably discharged over a year ago. They were fortunate in almost everything it would seem, how they found each other. Not everyone could find their utterly perfect mate as they had.

"What should be his name?" the doctor asked.

"Shaun," Nate whispered through his tears. The name they had both settled on.

"Shaun," she repeated softly, looking into the dewy black eyes of her baby.

News of the increasing conflict with China mattered little to them, though it probably should have. But when the Vault Tec representative came knocking, offering them space in the local vault, it would seem as though their good fortune continued smiling. So, it almost mattered very little when, within the hour, the first nuclear bombs had been dropped on U. S. soil.

Shortly after the broadcast, they fled with Baby Shaun in hand up the hill to Vault 111. Despite that the Vault Tec representative was turned away, they were allowed through the security check.

They waited anxiously, huddled together on the vault platform. She stroked Shaun's cheek as he slept soundly in Nate's arms. Nate pushed some hair behind her ear, cradling her face.

The moment could not even be shattered when another bomb dropped over Boston. They saw the mushroom cloud but escaped the rushing wave of heat and radiation as their platform descended in time, another token of their luck.

But it would be their last.

Nora watched her beloveds directly across the aisle. Nate with Shaun, climbing into the decontamination pod. She touched the glass of her pod, reaching out to him. She saw Nate do the same.

Only, it wasn't decontamination. It was hell. And this hell came with frozen tendrils of ice and frosted glass. Cryogenics.

Her next breath was a gasp, fogging her window of the vault. She saw Nate awakening as well.

But something was terribly wrong. She felt it deep in her core. The vault was dark. A scientist in a cleanroom suit pointed to Nate. A rugged man with scars and dirty clothes, _armor_.

Nate's pod was _the one._

"Open it."

The pod opened. Nora's didn't. She pounded on hers, knowing her pleas were muted, ignored.

The scientist reached for Shaun, _her baby_.

Nate—blessed, beautiful Nate—in his dazed confusion could detect the threat of danger. He clutched their baby to his chest. " _No, I've got him._ "

The man produced a gun and had no hesitation in pointing it to Nate's temple. " _Let the kid go._ "

" _I'm not giving you Shaun._ "

The gunshot echoed throughout the vault and pierced the boundless silence of her own cryogenic pod, piercing her chest and rupturing her life.

Shaun was collected like a parcel or bounty. The murderer turned to look at her screaming and pounding against her cell. Her throat went numb and her hands stung bright red. He sneered, revealing a menacing countenance and issued some taunt of Nora being a _backup_.

Her hell froze her in place again.

Her joy was indescribable, and her life had floated through bliss like a cloud. Looking back, her fortune, her luck could not be denied. She couldn't imagine anyone ever being so fortunate to experience such happiness.

But it was fleeting. Her grief dragged through excruciating, painful minutes. When she finally emerged from the catacombs of corpses of Vault 111, blinking in the watery sunlight that illuminated the ruins of her decimated home, she knew this started a new life for Nora, a life forged from her grief and the ashes of her vengeance.

They could take her purpose. But they would not win.

* * *

Electronic feedback. Baby giggling.

_Hi honey! Listen..._

_I don't think Shaun and I need to tell you how great a mother you are. But, we're going to anyway. You are kind, and loving..._

Baby giggling.

_and funny! That's right. And patient. So patient, patience of a saint as your mother used to say._

_Look, with Shaun and us being home together, it's been an amazing year, but even so, I know our best days are yet to come. There will be changes, sure, things we'll need to adjust to. I'll rejoin the civilian workforce. You'll shake the dust off your law degree._

_But everything we do, no matter how hard, we do it for our family._

_Now say goodbye Shaun. Bye-bye. Say bye-bye._

Baby giggling.

_Bye honey, we love you._

Her energy was sapped. She fell to her knees and did not even have the strength to weep, to express her devastation. Her loss rippled through her veins, reflecting in the rubble and debris of Sanctuary Hills. _Two centuries of destruction._

While Codsworth tried to awkwardly comfort her with one of his robotic appendages patting her back arrhythmically, she looked into his optical lens as his words eventually transitioned into despairs over their gardenias.

She lost Nate. She lost Shaun. But at least she had Codsworth, at least she had _something_. And something was better than nothing.

Something dragged her through the neighbors' houses in a futile search for her lost family. She felt odd about entering them, almost like it was trespassing. But she quickly overcame her unease. The only things that lived in these houses now were the over-sized insects she had already familiarized herself with at the Vault. The insects and skeletons.

God, the skeletons. They littered the ground _everywhere_.

But Codsworth, though misguided, his concern in his brief search was genuine in intention. Soon, he too came to accept the sad reality of her new life.

The first several days of her freedom was spent cleaning up her house. Codsworth easily complied, whizzing around with tasks he was originally programmed for. He would often titter about how lucky he was to have found her again, how everything had been hopeless before. It at least provided her with a small amount of comfort.

There were several other houses in Sanctuary Hills that were ruined beyond repair. Her house at least was— _mostly_ —structurally sound. She picked through the garbage methodically. The bed she had shared with Nate was nothing but rubble that she cleared out. His service flag remained, which she displayed on their still standing kitchen table. Not that they had any visitors to see it on display.

Once she got to the nursery, however, things changed. Her breath escaped her lungs. She gripped the door frame for support. She saw the toy blocks, the baby book, tricycle, all laying abandoned. In the middle of it all, like a shrine, stood his crib.

The baby mattress had been reduced to dust, and the mobile hung in broken shambles. The paint was peeling from the charred wood, but its blue color was still visible after all this time. Two centuries.

She didn't enter the nursery. She couldn't. She wouldn't dare.

And so instead, she sat on the ottoman that remained in the front room, fiddling with the controls of the Pipboy she had lifted from the remains of a scientist in Vault 111. It had operated the door and elevator, allowing her outside in an otherwise locked down vault. Little good it did in finding her son.

"I need to find Shaun," she said aloud, affirming her new purpose in this life.

Codsworth approached her from the kitchen. "Ma'am, if I may, I never saw anyone leave through Sanctuary Hills. But someone else might have seen young Shaun passing through. Someone in Concord, maybe?"

"Concord?" she repeated, looking up. Concord, as she remembered it, was not far away.

"Yes, but be careful. I've seen more seedy individuals than I would care to count since the bombs fell. You should be prepared, armed even. I believe Master Nathaniel had something hidden away from his military days that might prove useful.

It was a .50 caliber rifle stowed away in the bottom of their closet. Nora remembered it well. It required some cleaning, parts of the assembly rusted through, and some modification in order for it to be useful once more, but overall, Nora was surprised with its intact condition.

Codsworth helped her with cleaning it and modifying it, improving it. At the workbench across the street, they worked on its accuracy, its recoil, and ammo capacity. By the next day, they had a gun worthy of her mission. Nate had taken her to the shooting range a few times to practice her marksmanship, but she tested a few shots in the hillside behind Sanctuary Hills. Luckily, Nate had stockpiled ammunition, and Codsworth's diligent watch over their home had discouraged looters over the centuries.

"May I accompany you, ma'am? To find young Shaun?" Codsworth inquired eagerly.

Nora looked at him sadly, suffering a small smile. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy the robobutler's company, but she really needed to do this alone. "You should stay here and watch the homefront, just in case Shaun comes back."

Codsworth's gyrosphere whirred in agreement. "Excellent decision. Please be safe. Take care of yourself."

She kept smiling, reassuring her grip on the rifle. "I'll be fine. I've got this with me."

"If I may—Master Nathaniel told me once that soldiers would name their weapons as a sign of good luck, or something to that effect."

Nora gave a small chuckle, looking at the heavy rifle in her hands. She thought of her dearest home and family and how she hoped to be reunite with them once again.

"I'll call it... Sanctuary."

And her sanctuary it was.


	2. Chapter 2

Her grief, her determination, and her trusty rifle Sanctuary didn't prepare her for the Commonwealth Wasteland. She remembered how she used to drive to Concord with her husband on Sunday afternoons. By car, it had only been a five minute drive.

The walk was a bit longer.

Crossing the damaged bridged out of Sanctuary Hills, she came upon a scene that she should have taken as a harbinger for what she would encounter throughout the rest of the Commonwealth. Two bodies—fresh, not skeletons. A wild dog with large scabs and great patches of missing hair. The other was a woman covered in dirt and grime, locked in an apparent altercation with the dog. And that was how they had met their end.

It was a pitiful sight to be certain, but Nora didn't have time to grieve over them. She released a weak sigh before dragging their bodies off the road, behind some boulders. She gave the bodies a last furtive glance before taking the woman's leather duster for herself.

Around the bend was the Red Rocket Station, another familiar sight sitting in dusty ruin. She paused to examine the garage door and wondered about the contents hiding inside. There could be supplies, perhaps. Something useful, supposing these areas weren't already picked cleaned by scavengers from the past two centuries.

The sound of some light scratching interrupted her thoughts. She tensed, expecting danger.

But then, of all things, a dog appeared from the truck stop. He wasn't mangy or scabby. He was a German shepherd with a relatively clean coat and bright, intelligent eyes. He approached her cautiously, nose sniffing, ears perked.

She tested the waters. "Hey there. Good boy."

He gave an experimental wag of his tail, stepping closer. She reached out her hand and, with a cursory sniff, he began licking her hand.

"Okay, good boy. So, friends? Where is your owner?"

That elicited a small whine from him, as if he understood her words perfectly. Thinking back to the dead woman on the road, she could easily imagine what had happened to his previous owner.

"Okay, well, you can come with me. I warn you though; it'll probably be dangerous."

He gave an excited bark, stretching out his front legs, as if danger didn't concern him.

"All right. Let's go, pal."

He trotted faithfully by her side on the road to Concord.

The destruction of the Wasteland was ever-reaching. The houses and buildings they passed looked like any other, all the same. No building was too great or too insignificant for the damage. There were large sections in the road where the pavement was broken up. A few over-sized insects obstructed their path but they proved nothing more than a nuisance for her and her new companion.

But the real danger was in the heart of Concord.

It appeared as though she had arrived in the middle of a firefight. She took cover behind an overturned car and watched for a minute. She was surrounded by more grimy individuals wearing shabbily patched leather armor, firing obscenities and ballistics toward the Museum of Freedom. From the balcony, several rounds of  _laser beams_  were fired upon the combatants on the street.

Nora scrutinized those laser beams, vaguely remembering how the army had already developed energy weapons before the bombs dropped, but not that they had been released to the civilian public.

She didn't have long to consider this, though. Someone noticed her and began immediately shooting. She ducked just in time, reaching for Sanctuary. Growling, the dog fearlessly sprang into battle.

She wasn't sure how she did it, but within minutes, the raiders on the street were all dispatched. She didn't recall being that great of a shot but wondered if she should feel some measure of remorse for killing all those people. However, any guilt she felt was short lived when the person on the museum balcony called out to her.

"Hey! Hey you! Thanks for coming when you did. Look, if you wouldn't mind, we could still use your help in here—"

She looked at him blankly as his pleas grew more awkward in her silence. She considered him mutely. He mentioned something about Minutemen, and she wondered if she had stepped back in time instead of sleeping through two centuries into the future. Either way, they needed her help. Doing so would delay her search for Shaun. But currently, her search for Shaun was a blind one. She had no leads, no idea where to start. If anything, they might have known something.

"I'll be right up!"

Navigating the museum was quick work, not as quick as she would have liked given that it seemed as though half the building had collapsed in on itself. She was glad Nate wasn't here to see it in this state; the museum had been one of his favorite places.

Soon, the remaining raiders inside were dealt with, and she was at the topmost floor facing a locked door. She tried opening and was met with a gun to her face.

She flinched, remembering how Nate had been shot. But then the weapon was lowered and the face from the balcony smiled. "Hi. I'm Preston Garvey."

Preston Garvey was not alone. What had once been a group of twenty survivors was now a group of five. There was Sturges—a handy mechanic who could build almost anything. Marcy and Jun Long—the angry mother and depressed father who had lost their son. The abrasiveness of Marcy and the despondency of Jun didn't phase her; she saw facets of herself reflected in them, the rage and the grief. The self loathing.

And finally, there was the older, almost senile woman with a riddled and storied past. Mama Murphy.

"I see you and Dogmeat have found each other," Mama Murphy said, stroking the fur of the exuberant canine.

"Oh, is Dogmeat yours?" Nora asked, thinking it a strange name for a dog.

"Oh no, Dogmeat belongs to no one," Mama Murphy said simply. "He was our friend. Preston sent him to find help. Seems like he certainly found it."

"Nora," Preston interrupted before she could ponder this any further.

He took her off to the side, detailing their plan to push through the remaining raiders. A vertibird had crashed into the roof of the museum. Inside was a functional power armor suit and a minigun. In order to grab the minigun, they needed the suit of power armor. In order to power the suit, they needed a fusion core, which required a quick trip to the museum's basement. To Nora's utter amazement, the fusion core still hummed with energy, even after centuries of neglect.

Sturges was excited to see her success. "Have you ever used power armor?" he asked.

She was shocked. "You want  _me_  to use it?" She looked to Preston, the only one even wielding a gun in the group.

He hung his head. "I do think that would be the best choice. You've proven yourself more than capable."

She nodded firmly, thinking about Nate's time in the military, the few times he had mentioned different models of power armor. "I can figure it out." She had graduated law school, after all.

Mama Murphy had a warning to offer. "Be careful. There's something out there. Something that's not a raider. Big, with claws of death."

Nora frowned at the vague description, but before she could inquire further, Preston was pushing her out the rooftop door while the Longs shared their confidence that they were all dead.

The power armor suit gave her pause. It had belonged to someone, someone who had been alive two hundred years ago when she was alive. Someone in the army who could have easily been her husband, had Nate not been injured in combat. A holodisk nearby identified that someone as a Michael Daly. It was not Nathaniel Howard, but it could have so easily been—if Nate wasn't discharged, if they weren't offered space in the vault, if Nate had been tasked with protecting Concord. So many if's, most of them leading to Nate's inevitable death, either way.

She quietly thanked Michael Daly for his service and donned the power armor.

Insert the fusion core. Turn the release valve.

Everything still worked. The minigun welded to the frame of the vertibird gave some protest, but Nora managed to rip it off. Dogmeat whimpered when she told him to stay behind.

The remaining raiders served as no real match to her sudden might, even with their insane leader pressing them forward into certain death.

However, the ones retreating didn't prove so lucky either.

Jumping down from the roof of the museum was an easy, exhilarating task in power armor, but it might have been a poor decision. When the last of the raiders fled down the street, something shook the ground, clawing its way from the bowels of the earth. When it surfaced, Nora had no name, no comparison for the monstrosity facing her down the street. It was as large as the buildings around it, complete with horns and vicious claws. Its roar vibrated every cell in her body.

Claws of death. Mama Murphy didn't miss her mark.

Nora stood her ground, firing the minigun into the terrifying creature. She was picked up and thrown around a few times but remained mostly unscathed thanks to the protective power armor. She managed to pick herself up, reassure her grip on the minigun, and keep firing.

Eventually, she felled the creature. Its body slammed to the ground lifelessly, creating a cloud of dust and smoke. Her fusion core was nearly depleted, the minigun hot in her hands. She staggered back to the museum where the others were gathering on the entrance steps. She waited a moment to catch her breath, the power armor proving difficult to breathe in.

"That was amazing!" Preston exclaimed. "You completely took down that deathclaw on your own."

"Deathclaw?" Nora repeated. "Is that what it's called? Nice clarification there with the claws of death."

"We're so glad that you came along," Jun said. "We would have never made it out of that alive."

Marcy was less impressed. "For what though? How long is it going to take us to reach this place, Mama Murphy?"

"Where are you headed?" Nora asked.

"It's a place called Sanctuary Hills," Preston answered. "Mama Murphy saw it in a vision. We've been looking for a safe place to settle after Quincy." Preston's voice faltered at  _Quincy_ , indicating some tragic story if Nora didn't know better.

"How long are we going to follow these visions?" Marcy barked. "They're not real. They're just a reason for her to keep taking chems."

"I'm sorry, visions?" Nora asked.

Mama Murphy spoke up. "It's the Sight. And it never lies. Let's ask our savior, our survivor here what she knows about Sanctuary Hills. How far away is it? Is it a nice place to live?"

The look of expectation in Mama Murphy's face made her uneasy. It was if she knew, understood the entirety of Nora's life. Nora cleared her throat. "It's not far. Down the road, past the Red Rocket Station."

"Is it a nice place?" Preston asked, sounding grateful for some long-awaited good news.

She quirked a small smile. "I enjoyed living there. The neighborhood was nice, back when I actually had neighbors."

She saw their confusion, their shock unhinge their jaws. "Wait, do you mean—"

"Yes, I lived here. Before the Great War, before the bombs fell."

" _How_?" Preston asked.

"My family and I—we were selected for a vault. But when we got down there, they cryogenically froze us." She faltered at the hint of her own tragedy.

"Yes," Mama Murphy said, nodding. "I saw it all. I saw you wake up from your sleep, the Sole Survivor of Vault 111. You've come to the Commonwealth seeking something. I can tell you that your son is not far."

Her insight was unnerving. Nora's hands shook. "What. Do you know. About. Shaun." she issued in a low voice through tight lips. "Where. Is. My baby."

Mama Murphy swayed, her eyes glazing from some permanence of exhaustion. "I cannot see that. He is hidden. But I know you will find him. Go to the great gem of the Commonwealth. The green jewel of Boston. Diamond City."

Before she could say anything else, Preston reached out to support Mama Murphy. He looked up at Nora. "She has these visions. It's how she's led us here this far—"

"With fifteen people dead so far," Marcy spat.

Preston ignored her. "Your son is missing?"

Nora tried to compose herself. "Yes. He was kidnapped right after my husband was murdered. I was trapped in my cryopod."

Preston gave a low whistle. "Kidnapping infants? That sounds a lot like Institute business."

"What's the Institute?"

"A mysterious group of scientists, supposedly descended from the CIT. They operate in secret and are supposedly the reason for all the bad things happening in the Commonwealth. People blame them for all sort of mysterious things. You could call them our boogeyman. In either case, you can decide to take Mama Murphy's advice or not. She hasn't been wrong so far," he said, narrowing his eyes at Marcy. "But honestly, going to Diamond City is probably your best bet in finding your son."

Diamond City became her new destination. Before she set off on the journey, she walked them to Sanctuary Hills, welcoming them to the neighborhood. Once the Minuteman statue came into sight, everyone gave a gasp of relief. Preston turned and mouthed an appreciative 'thank you' before helping Mama Murphy across the bridge.

"Codsworth, I'm back. And I brought some new friends."

The robobutler seemed excited, if a bit confused at the new arrivals. He helped them all clear out some of the neighboring houses of junk before nightfall so they would have a place to sleep, a roof over their heads. Meanwhile, Nora stepped out of her power armor next the rusty shambles of the fusion powered car Nate had purchased for her before Shaun was born. It had been on loan, of course, since neither had been employed at the time, but she could breathe easier not having to worry about the loan's interest fees any more.

When she turned around, she saw Sturges approaching her. "I don't want to be presumptuous..." he started carefully.

"Of course not. What's on your mind?"

"This place—Sanctuary Hills—is pretty nice. There's space, a river that could provide us water, once it's purified, and it's pretty defensible. My mind's already started the plans on making the outer walls. We could have three main gates—"

"That sounds lovely," she said with a smile she hoped didn't look too forced.

Sturges faltered, sensing her hesitation. "Something bothers you?"

"Not your plan, of course. It's a great plan. I would love to see Sanctuary Hills being a home to people again, being used and turned into something better than a neighborhood covered in debris. I just..." her voice trailed off as her throat tightened. She swallowed. "It's hard being here for me. I knew the people that lived in these houses. They're all gone now."

Sturges nodded. "Of course. We understand. We won't disrespect anything. I just wanted to run my ideas by you, since you're sort of the Mayor of Sanctuary Hills."

Her scoff was derisive. "I wouldn't call myself  _mayor._ "

"You're the one with ties to this place. If anything, we're your guests. But really, we just want to settle down, once and for all. We're all tired of moving around, fighting, running away in the middle of the night. We want to make something great. After what I've seen you do today, I have no doubt that you can help us make something greater." He paused awkwardly. "Well that's all I had. I'll leave you to your thoughts."

Nora watched him walk away, her tight throat swelling up her tongue, her eyes pricking. She coughed and the feeling didn't go away. She couldn't imagine deserving such praise, not after she had failed as a mother, as a wife, allowing her husband to be murdered, her son to be kidnapped.

If Sturges was so determined to make Sanctuary great, she would at least bring back Shaun to experience the greatness. Or die trying.

And that was why she didn't want to be mayor or a leader of these people. They, who had been through so much and clung so desperately to hope, deserved better than her. She failed her own family. She couldn't help these people. Their welfare wasn't her priority. Shaun's was, and she was prepared to throw her life away for that.


End file.
